Nightwind (23 page)

He stared at her for a long moment then he slowly, sensuously smiled. “You don’t know,” he told her in

a seductive, low voice, “what sexy is.” His stare became very intense. “Yet.”

Lauren felt a stab of reaction deep in her abdomen and she wiggled in her seat, looking away from the

devastating promise in his dark face.

“Shouldn’t we be going?” she asked, reaching for her purse and slinging the strap over her shoulder.

Syntian watched her as she stood up, nervously fiddling with the remainder of their meal, wiping at the

salt on the tabletop, replacing the salt and peppershakers to their original positions, stuffing the unused

napkins into her purse. As she started to lift the plastic tray, he stood and covered her hands on the tray’s

rim with his own, not at all surprised when she jumped back, snatching her hands from under his.

“Let me,” was all he said as he took the tray to the garbage bin and dumped the contents inside. He held

the door open for her, and the giggling teenage girls who were just entering.

“Thank you,” Lauren heard one of the girls breathe.

“Any time, Sweeting,” came Syn’s reply and the four teenage girls broke out in groans of adolescent

lust.

“You’re a flirt,” Lauren told him as he opened the car door for her.

“No,” he answered when she was inside. He put his arm on the top of the Porsche and leaned toward

her. “I’m incorrigible.” He straightened up and pushed the car door shut.

He was holdingher close to him, the heat of his body flowing along her own like molten lava. His right

hand was at the small of her back, pressing her to him, and his left was holding her right hand close to his

chest. She could smell the heady scent of his Halston Z-12 cologne where her cheek nestled against his

neck and the aroma was intoxicating. He moved so well to the music, his feet keeping the soft, hypnotic

rhythm of the slow song as he swayed her around the dance floor. Overhead, a revolving ball of faceted

light sent shards of refracted color over the dancers circling about them and seemed to pulse with the

beat.

“I like this song,” she muttered, feeling his hand caressing her fingers. “Fields of Gold. It is lovely.”

He nuzzled her with his chin against the side of her head. “Sensuous.”

“Do you come here often?” she asked, a stab of jealousy that he might have brought some other woman

here, had held that woman like he was holding her, making her heart ache.

“Sometimes I come just to listen to the music,” he admitted as he ran his right hand up her back.

“Alone.”

She pulled back from him and looked into his face, surprised that he had been dancing with his eyes

closed. When he opened them and looked down at her, she felt a tremor go through her lower body for

the look he gave her was filled with pure lust.

“Does that surprise you?” he asked, allowing a little more distance between their two bodies. “I may be

a vampire, but I’m not a satyr.” He grinned.

“Have you ever brought Mrs. Hellstrom here?” she asked, wishing she could have bitten off her tongue

before uttering that childish, and to her way of thinking, telling, remark for his face became still and alert.

“I don’t know what you think is between Angeline and me, Lauren,” he told her, becoming as still as his

face. “But what she and I have is strictly impersonal.” His hand tightened on hers. “I may sleep with the

bitch, but believe me, it’s not because I want to or gain any kind of pleasure from doing so.”

She stared at him, amazed that he would admit such a thing to her. Her feminine curiosity overrode her

good sense and she asked the question even before she had time to think. “Does she have something on

you, Syntian?”

He flinched, and when she started to apologize for her presumption, he quieted her with his fingertips.

“Yes, you do have the right to ask,” he told her. Lowering the hand that still gripped hers, he turned and

led her from the dance floor toward the front of the nightclub.

“Syntian.”

“We’ll discuss it on the way home.”

The night was dark, no moon sailing the skies of the Florida Panhandle. The spooky ride back from Ft.

Walton Beach through the pine thickets of Navarre was broken only by the wide concrete bridge over

the Yellow River that cast back the lights from the Porsche with white brilliance. Few other points of

illumination filtered through the tinted windows of the sports car until they passed the Santa Rosa Truck

Stop with its idling semis and restaurant lights. Despite what Syntian had said, there had been no

conversation between them for the last thirty miles. When he stopped at the intersection of Highway 87

and 90, he pulled off the road onto the dirt parking lot of a closed feed store and turned off the engine.

They sat in the quiet, each with his own thoughts, until Syntian turned in his seat and put his right hand on

the back of Lauren’s seat.

“What I am going to tell you, you won’t believe,” he said. “You’re going to think I’m a raving lunatic and

you probably won’t want anything to do with me afterwards.”

She shifted around and faced him, unable to see much of his face in the absence of any light, but she

heard a quiet desperation in his voice that told her what he had to say meant everything in the world to

him.

“I’ll believe whatever you tell me. Except that you’re a vampire.”

He looked away from her, peering out through the windshield. He seemed to be gathering his thoughts

and she didn’t break the silence. His hand was gripping the headrest of the bucket seat and she felt the

pressure of his hold. She heard the deep, measured cadence of his breathing: rhythmic and controlled.

When that cadence changed, grew faster then stopped, she knew he was ready to tell her what was on

his mind.

“Angeline Hellstrom is a witch, Lauren,” he said, still not looking at her.

“My mother thinks so, too. But she’s always been nice to me.”

He acted as though he hadn’t heard her. “She knows how to control people, how to manipulate them.

She’s your friend as long as you are useful to her.” He turned to look at her through the darkness. “But

once that usefulness is over, she is finished with you.” His voice turned hard. “If you’re lucky.”

“Obviously your usefulness to her isn’t over with.”

He took his hand from the headrest of her seat and sat back in his own. “I wish to hell it was.” He

gripped the steering wheel with both hands and jerked on it. “There is only one way I’ll ever be free of

her and that is if she can somehow be made to break the contract.”

Another car passed in front of them and the sweep of its headlights momentarily lit Syntian’s profile.

Lauren found him glaring out the windshield, his arms rigid in front of him. Whatever was bothering him

had brought a fierce scowl to his handsome face.

“Have you asked her to let you out of your contract to her?”

A bitter laugh rushed through the interior of the sports car. “Oh, I’ve asked her,” he growled.

“And she said no.”

He swung his head toward her. “It’s more than the contract, Lauren; it’s me she doesn’t want to let go.”

A puzzled frown passed over Lauren’s face. “I don’t understand. Is she in love with you?”

“Love?” he scoffed, throwing back his head. “Lust would be more like it!”

Under the dark cover of night, Lauren was thankful he couldn’t see her face. She looked away from

him, looking out through the passenger window, unable to say anything. She was not used to having such

conversations, especially not with a man, and she was not only embarrassed, but feeling somewhat guilty

concerning the subject matter.

“I don’t love her,” he said forcefully. “I never have and I’m damned sure never going to!”

She didn’t turn back around. “Then why sleep with her?” Her voice was small, lost as her

embarrassment mounted.

“I don’t have a choice in the matter, Lauren,” he said. “It wasn’t part of our deal, but if I want to

continue seeing you, that was the stipulation she made.”

Lauren’s mouth dropped open and she slowly turned her head to look at him. “You’re joking!” She saw

him shake his head.

“No, I am not.” Lights flooded the back windshield and he glanced in the rear view mirror, squinting as

the bright flare of a semi’s high beams reflected into his face from the mirror. “Bastard,” he grumbled and

flipped the mirror toward the headliner.

Lauren watched him sitting there, quiet, allowing her to absorb what he had said, waiting for her to ask

him whatever she would. When she remained silent, he turned his face to her.

“I care about you, Lauren. I care deeply about you.” His voice was hoarse, as though his words

somehow hurt him. “I don’t want anything or anyone to turn you against me.”

“That’s not going to happen,” she said. “I don’t judge other people by what someone else says about

them, Syntian. I’ve been on the receiving end of that situation enough to know how it feels to be

condemned without ever having committed the crime.”

She could feel his probing look through the darkened car. “And if that person has committed a crime?”

A faint shiver of apprehension went down Lauren’s spine. “What you did before I met you doesn’t

effect how I feel about you,” she answered. “As long as what you’ve done in the past stays in the past, I

don’t see how it can be of any importance. I swear to you, I’ll never hold it against you as long as it stays

in the past.”

He turned away. “It can, Lauren. Believe me, it can.” He closed his eyes. “Promise me you won’t send

me away because of what I did before we began to see one another.”

“I promise,” she said and crossed her heart. “On my honor, I promise.” She heard him sigh with relief.

She thought she understood. “Mrs. Hellstrom knows something about you that you don’t want other

people to know. Is that it?”

He nodded.

“And this something is bad enough that she can control what you do and don’t do by keeping it quiet?”

He breathed a long, tired, nervous sigh. “Aye.”

That shiver of apprehension turned more forceful. “Can you tell me about it?”

He shook his head. “No.”

There was a long moment of utter silence inside the sports car. Finally Lauren broke the stillness.

“Syntian?” He looked around at her. Her hand came up to cup his right cheek. “It doesn’t matter what

you did,” she told him.

“It might if you knew.”

“It wouldn’t,” she insisted. She shifted in her seat, turning to face him fully. “Believe me it wouldn’t. And

do you know why it wouldn’t?”

Her hand on his cheek was the most wonderful thing he had felt in a very, very long time. Her flesh was

cool and smelled faintly of soap. Nuzzling his face against her palm, he told her no.

“Because,” she said, caressing his cheek, “God help me, I want to be with you and I won’t let anyone

chase me away.” He heard tears in her voice. “I’ve waited too long to feel the way I am feeling to let

someone else’s jealousy or spite ruin it.”

He drew in a harsh breath and brought his hand up to press hers closer to his face. Turning his lips

against her palm, he kissed her flesh, closing his eyes to the emotion flooding his being.

“I don’t care what you’ve done. I don’t care what Mrs. Hellstrom knows about you,” she told him. “All

I care about is the way you treat me; the way you make me feel inside. No one has ever looked at me

the way you do. I don’t want that to end, Syntian.”

“It won’t!” he swore.

Before she realized what he was going to do, he had reached out and taken her by the nape of her neck,

drawing her toward him in the darkness, bringing her lips to his and covering them with a hot, questing

mouth that sealed his promise in a way that was meant not only to reassure her, but make her understand

the depth of his pledge.

His kiss was heady, bringing excitement. Even as inexperienced as she was with the worldly natures of

men and women, she knew Syntian Cree’s kiss could have rocked the most jaded woman off her

pedestal. It did more than just elicit a gasp of pleasure from Lauren’s throat; it started a humming

vibration along her nerve endings that made her squirm in her seat. Where his fingers held her neck, she

felt tingling warmth and his mouth slanted across her own was draining away every ounce of reserve she

possessed. When his tongue flicked at her lips, she jumped away from him as though the hounds of hell

were nipping at her heels.

Through the darkness, he peered at her face, listening to the ragged breath dragging from her lungs in

quick little gasps of bewilderment, feeling her trembling where his hand touched her shoulder.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” he said, drawing away from her. He leaned as far away from her as the

interior of the car would allow. “I’m sorry. You’re not ready.”

Lauren, stunned by the ache his kiss had brought, couldn’t answer. Her heart was slamming against her

ribcage, her blood pounding in her ears, and she became aware of a light film of perspiration under her

arms.

Syntian switched on the ignition and reached for the gearshift, surprised when Lauren covered his hand

with hers. He looked at her.

“Go slow,” she said and he knew she didn’t mean his driving.

He exhaled a wavering breath of relief that he hadn’t frightened her. “All right.”

A curtain partedat the Black sisters’ front parlor as he pulled up in front of Lauren’s house. He could

see one of the old maids peering out at them. “They don’t miss a thing, do they?” he asked.